


The Ghosts are my Memories

by QwillReign



Series: Eternity [2]
Category: Septimus Heap - Angie Sage
Genre: 2000 years in the future, Angst, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Immortality, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29566551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QwillReign/pseuds/QwillReign
Summary: While they die, Marcellus lives.While they live, Marcellus watches.
Series: Eternity [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172039
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	The Ghosts are my Memories

They die. 

They die, and there’s no way to stop it. Everyone dies, in the end, and they leave behind a ghost. 

A ghost. A memory that never leaves, but it’s not the same, because they never change. It’s a reminder of what they once were, who his friends used to be. Memories of the boy who saved him, of the Queen that was oh so kind, of the Extraordinary who only pretended to hate him, after the first few years. Memories of his apprentice and his wife, long distant memories of his sister, his friends, his students. Marcellus remembered them all, and he watched them die. 

He watched them become stories, become tales of the past that were told in schools, around campfires, and written down in storybooks. He watched as the children of the castle learned of the children of the past, and he had helped countless students with their essays, an old habit kept from dear Lucy’s tutoring program back in the old days. He told them of the wonderful dragon Spitfyre, and of his Apprentice’s marvelous blending of Magyk and Alchimie (which apprentice, he never said). He told it all as he remembered, but Marcellus was old. He did not remember it all. 

When he forgot, he would hide away. He didn’t help with the essays, he refused to emerge from his house on Snake Slipway, the same one he had lived in since the Very Old days (these being the time of Queen Etheldreda). He ignored the curious children clamoring for stories of the Old Days (being the time of Septimus and Simon and so many others). He ignored them all, and he did Alchemie with his dear friends the Drummins. They lived on, and they remembered. It helped. 

In the early days, when he was only about 500 or so, when his second family was newly departed, he would talk with them often. Marcellus, the only one who didn’t age, the only one who couldn’t, was their tie to the real world. 

When Marcia died, Marcellus was on the sidelines. She had plenty of friends and family, and he paid his respects and left. But the people who remained behind came to him. It was a strange thing, to be the one who others asked for advice on death. He was undying, he was the worst person to ask. But he could not turn the grieving people away, so Marcellus tried. He told them of how he had closed himself off, how he had gone mad with grief and retreated underground. He didn’t want to watch anyone else go down that path, so he told them what he wished he had done. 

Marcellus wished that he had visited Esmerelda’s ghost, and oh how he wished that he could find her now. He wanted to speak with her, to heal. He cautioned against behaving as if Marcia was alive, for he had watched many, in the early days, fall apart. 

When Septimus died in the Wizard Tower and Jenna was too weak to travel, he brought them messages. A last kindness, you could call it.

When Jenna died a few months later, he was the only one who could bring themself to go tell Septimus. He continued to bring the messages back and forth. He continued to help. Many people focused on the living, on helping them adjust to life without the dead. Marcellus helped with this, yes, but he comforted the dead above all. 

He realized that they would be adjusting to the change as well. He realized that death was important to more than just the living, and he helped them move on. He helped them move on as he did, to remember that they would always have their memories, and they would never be alone

As the years passed by, Marcellus’s friends faded. They still talked, and laughed, and visited him often, but they were not Living. He tried not to fall into a pattern of talking only to ghosts, he knew it wouldn’t be healthy. He tried to follow his own advice, he really did.

But it was hard, and he failed often. Marcellus would speak only to the past, only of the past, for years and years at a time. When they noticed, or when Douglass Drummin did, the ghosts would stop coming. 

Marcellus hated when they stopped coming, as that was when he lost the memories. 

It was when he couldn’t remember who was real, and who was a figment of his imagination. It was when he forgot to eat, or sleep, and locked himself in the Great Alchemie Chamber for years at a time. 

But it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do, to leave him alone. 

Because eventually, he remembered the memories on his own. He remembered the happier days, and he found more of them. Once he snapped out of the hazes that lasted years on end, he could be happy again. That was when he took on apprentices and watched them grow up, turning into brilliant alchemists. 

He gave counsel to the Queens, and Marcellus knew every single one, all the way from Jenna to the current Queen, sixty generations later, Cora. 

He argued with so many ExtraOrdinary wizards and he got on with a few. He occasionally remembered spells that Septimus and Simon had done, and wrote them out- one copy for the Wizard Tower, and one copy for the ALchimests, all of whom he had helped train. Even if only for a year or so at the end. 

Marcellus Lived, although he sometimes wondered why. 

He regretted immorality every day, and refused to let another join him. Even if he were to live until the end of the world, he would not wish the same fate upon another. 

But he also loved it, some days. He loved it when he felt the sun shining on his back, when he was the most knowledgeable in the room. He loved it when the Queens, no matter how distant, called him Uncle. He loved it when his students showed great promise, and when they made new discoveries even though it seemed there were no more to be had. He loved watching society move, even if it was faster than he would like, because there was always something new to learn. 

He loved the quiet moments, surrounded by the ghosts of his friends, for although a ghost was a memory, they were people too, and it was nice to be with those he remembered best, even if he wished that they were there to hold. Even if he wished that it had not been over 2000 years since they last walked the earth. 

Immorality was lonely, but the living were exciting, and the dead good friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.  
> Don't forget that Kudos and Comments feed the soul!


End file.
